Murder of Yingying Zhang

Yingying Zhang was a visiting scholar from Nanping, Fujian, China, who arrived in the United States in April 2017 to spend a year researching photosynthesis and crop productivity at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She had graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in 2013 and earned a master's degree from Peking University in 2016; she planned to marry her boyfriend in October 2017. On the afternoon of June 9, 2017, Zhang was riding a bus in Urbana, Illinois, to sign an apartment lease. After missing a connecting bus, she walked to a stop at North Goodwin Avenue and West Clark Street. Surveillance video showed a black Saturn Astra pass her at 2:00 p.m., circle back, and stop beside her at 2:03 p.m.; she briefly spoke with the driver, then got into the car. She did not answer a later text from her leasing agent, and an associate professor reported her missing to police that evening.

University of Illinois police, Urbana police, and the FBI searched for Zhang, offering a reward that grew to $50,000. Investigators could not read the car's license plate but traced it to one of 18 Saturn Astras registered in Champaign County, including one owned by Brendt Allen Christensen, a former physics graduate student at the university. Christensen was first interviewed on June 12 and said he could not remember his activities that afternoon. After matching a cracked hubcap in the footage to his car, investigators searched it under a warrant on June 15; Christensen admitted giving an Asian woman a ride but said he dropped her off after a few blocks. Agents seized his computers and phone and placed him under surveillance. On June 29, Christensen's girlfriend, wearing an FBI recording device, accompanied him to a memorial walk for Zhang; an FBI affidavit said Christensen told her he had brought Zhang to his apartment and held her against her will.

On June 30, 2017, the FBI arrested Christensen and charged him with kidnapping. A magistrate judge denied him bail on July 5; a grand jury indicted him on July 12, and he pleaded not guilty at arraignment on July 20. His trial opened in June 2019, and his defense attorney acknowledged in opening statements that Christensen had killed Zhang, arguing only over the death penalty. Evidence showed that Christensen had posed as a police officer earlier that day in an unsuccessful attempt to abduct a student, and that after bringing Zhang to his apartment he choked, raped, and stabbed her before beating her with a baseball bat. On June 24, 2019, after deliberating less than two hours, a jury convicted Christensen of kidnapping resulting in death and two counts of making false statements to FBI agents. Jurors could not agree on a death sentence, and on July 18, 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus ten years. Under a November 2018 immunity agreement, Christensen told his attorneys he disposed of Zhang's remains in a dumpster later emptied into a landfill in Vermilion County, Illinois; her remains were not recovered.

Zhang's father, mother, brother, and boyfriend traveled to the United States and said they would not leave the country until she was found. A memorial garden honoring Zhang was dedicated at the same Urbana street corner on October 11, 2018; because her remains were never recovered, a box containing her clothing was buried there. In August 2019, Zhang's parents announced the Yingying Fund, an endowment managed by the University of Illinois Foundation to support international students in crisis. A documentary about the case, Finding Yingying, was released in December 2020.